Downward Spiral
A Subnautica story by Scifiwriterguy
Chapter 1, Part I
Hollister, Michael P.
Employee No. J-H8261827
Space Operations Division
Current Assignment: Captain, ASV Aurora
"Captain on deck!"
"As you were," Hollister says, walking briskly across the open-floorplan bridge. He notes that none of the crew manning stations had moved to get up on his entrance; if they had, it would've been a disciplinary note, no matter how much of a hurry he's in. Watchstanders have more to concentrate on than jumping to their feet every time someone with brass on his neck walks through the door, even if people like that pedantic pissant Yu didn't understand why.
In the center of the bridge, with a commanding view of both the local-sensor holo map in the lower-forward position and the viewpanels dominating the walls, his on-duty pilot team was working with uncommon speed. During the average cruise, pilots only have real work to do at departure and arrival, with a long stretch of nothing mid-flight.
Of course, this isn't an average cruise, he reflects.
Hollister makes for his navigator, Hideki Ishimura. Only a year out of Fleet training, but still one of Alterra's top interstellar navigators. That's why he's sitting on the bridge of the
Aurora and not in some cushy job in Alterra Central back in Gilese.
"Ishi? What's the news, son?" Hollister asks as he approaches the nav station. Hideki doesn't look up.
"Approach to 4546B is currently nominal, sir. We're beginning the roll and pitch to orient for the maneuver." Outside, the luminous crescent of 4546B's sunlit side is rotating slowly counterclockwise as the
Aurora spins on her long axis to point her belly at the planet.
"How long to gravity interface?"
Hideki glances at one of his wing monitors before answering.
"We'll be at the correct boost angle in two minutes, fifteen seconds...mark." In addition to rolling,
Aurora is also yaw-thrusting, pointing her nose to skim the planet. When the right angle comes up, the pilots hit the main engines and shove the ship forward so that the massive ship rolls around the planet's gravity well, shifting her onto a new course for the next leg of her journey; at the moment, the ship is still in its original plotted vector, aimed at the planet rather than alongside it.
"Good," Hollister says before walking away. Despite the relative difficulty of the upcoming maneuver, navigation isn't his main concern. Instead, he heads for a nearby instrument cluster staffed by three crew.
"Any contacts?" Hollister asks the trio as he steps up to them.
"Sir, currently holding no contacts of any kind," the senior sensor technician, some overeager pup named Reenberg, replies.
"Nothing in our transit path?"
"No sir, no contacts or reflections."
"Scanning the planet?"
"Yes, sir, full-spectrum. Sensor efficiency is degraded but I don't have any firm contacts."
"Degraded?"
"Yes, sir. 4546B seems to be a waterworld, and the water scatter is throwing off the fine targeting. Astrogation should be notified; they have the planet marked as partly terrestrial."
"Fine, notify them. After the maneuver. In the meantime, all three of you keep up active scanning on the planet and the orbital path, and you let me know if you detect anything."
"Yes, sir."
Straightening, Hollister looks through the viewpanels. The glowing, sunlit atmosphere of 4546B has rotated about halfway down the panels. Despite being mostly cargo space and blessed with some of the most powerful thrusters ever to come out of an engine lab, a ship as big as the Aurora can't maneuver very quickly; that much mass resists changes in its inertia.
"Optimal boost angle in one minute twenty...mark," Ishi's voice announces to the bridge from its cluster of displays.
"Very good," Hollister says to nobody in particular. He's getting worried now. To everybody else on the bridge, this is a semi-ordinary maneuver which he's decided to make more interesting by being a busybody and bothering the sensor team. But the sealed orders the command crew received just before departure make this another matter entirely, and one which isn't panning out correctly.
Sensors should see
something by now.
"What's that?"
Hollister spins on his heel, bulling his way to the sensor station.
"What?"
"Not sure, sir," Reenberg says, "Energy signature below, from the planet. Can't quite figure it out."
"Explain! Don't make me keep asking."
"It's a powerful signal, sir, but we can't localize it. It's a weird signature. I haven't seen anything like it before."
"Amplitude increasing exponentially," one of the subordinate techs says.
"Optimal angle in one minute...mark," Ishi says from halfway across the bridge.
"Power spike! It's going off the chart, sir!" the junior tech yells. Reenberg seems frozen.
Hollister's wrist flies toward his face, the bandmic keying automatically to the ship's 1MC announcement circuit.
"XO to the bridge on the double!" he shouts, his voice echoing in every corner of the ship's crew spaces.
"Sir!" the sensor tech screams. His gear has passed through the top of its range and is now showing Signal Off warnings - the energy reading below has exceeded the system's ability to understand.
"Sound collision!" Hollister yells to the bridge crew, and moments later the sound no spacer wants to hear begins: the rising-and-falling wail of the collision alarm. The one veteran spacers call "Death's Alarm Clock."
"Incoming!" The warning comes from the third-rate sensor tech, the one scanning in optical/IR. Although she can't make out what her telescopes are showing, it's bright, getting brighter, and unmistakably headed for her.
"
Brace for impact!" Hollister screams over the 1MC.
If you want to see Part II, let me know. All comments welcome.
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